Tag: Austria

Hidden
(Caché)

Director – Michael Haneke – 2005 – Austria, France, Germany – Cert.15 – 117m

***1/2

Covertly delivered VHS videotapes suggest to an upper middle class family that they are being watched, and begin to tease out guilt for an incident in the husband’s past – the closing film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 20th

A lengthy, locked-off camera shot of a street. A woman (Juliette Binoche) leaves the house through a full body height metal gate that seems to serve a security function, although the street seems largely quiet and unremarkable. Then the image starts to rewind in the manner of a videotape; what we are watching is a recording in the videotape player of a couple Georges and Anne Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), who are discussing its contents. The tape has been left outside their front door for reasons that are not immediately obvious and by person or persons unknown.

This opening shot is mirrored by another static shot at the end taken from outside the school of their son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) as pupils leave, in which… well, you’ll have to see for yourself, and director Haneke doesn’t make it easy to see what it is he wants you to see, so you’ll have to work at it… and even then, you may miss it.… Read the rest

Tags adopt, adultery, affair, affluent, Algerian, Algerian boy, apartment, Austria, axe, banlieue, book publishers, Caché, chicken, closest friends, collective guilt, coming to light, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, corridor, courtyard, covert, Daniel Auteuil, Daniel Duval, delivery, dinner parties, dreams, drowned, Europe, family, farmhouse, flat, France, French colonial history, gate, Germany, guilt, hidden, How did you find me?, incident in the past, judgement, Juliette Binoche, killing, Lester Makedonsky, locked-off camera, Luke 8:17, Maurice Bénichou, media professional, memories, Michael Haneke, Nathalie Richard, Paris Massacre of 1961, past misdemeanours, recording, rewind, school, security, Seine, street, surveillance, talk show, talk show host, television, torment, trigger, upper middle class, VHS, video recording, videotape, Walid Afkir, watched

Features Live Action Movies

Funny Games
(1997)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 June 2025
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(1997)
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Director – Michael Haneke – 1997 – Austria – Cert.18 – 103m

*****

Two young men turn up at a family’s holiday home to humiliate and torture them via a series of controlling exchanges (or games) – plays in Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Saturday, June 21st

Review originally published in Shivers around the time of the film’s 1997 London Film Festival premiere

With Hollywood currently rediscovering the profitability of slick, fun horror movies in the blockbusting wake of Scream (Wes Craven, 1996), Europe proves itself well capable of delivering work at the other end of the spectrum. Funny Games is the latest brainchild of Austrian-born Michael Haneke (Benny’s Video, 1992).

Like Scream, Funny Games never misses a trick on the technical level. Unlike Scream, its intention is not a non-stop, mass-consumption, vicarious thrill-laden roller coaster ride (which Funny Games certainly isn’t) but a rigorous and unrelenting, one way descent into madness, fear and despair depicting violence, mutilation, torture and – above all – amoral manipulation of one’s fellow human beings – as truly horrific.

To dismiss Funny Games as either moral lecture or morality play would do it great disservice. Never afraid to plumb the most violent depths of human depravity to make its points, it sidesteps the usual blinkered, narrow‑minded arguments about both the portrayal of violence in the media and its place in modern life.… Read the rest

Tags action movie, actioner, amoral, Arno Frisch, Austria, blood, chopping vegetables, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, control, controlling, descent into madness, despair, dog, everyday normality, family, fear, Frank Giering, games, gore, Hide and Seek, holiday home, Hollywood, horrify, horror, horror thrille, human depravity portrayal of violence, humiliate, kitchen, lakeside, manipulation, media, Michael Haneke, mundane activity, mutilation, naturalism, naturalistic observation, nuclear family, parents and children, pleasurable audience consumption, polite, press scan/rewind, psycho, retaliation, rigorous, shotgun, shy, Stefan Clapczynski, Susanne Lothar, taciturn, tell me it's only a movie, thrill, thrillers, Tom And Jerry, tormentors, torture, TV remote, Ulrich Muhe, unrelenting, upsetting, viewer, violence, well-spoken, young men

Features Live Action Movies

The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 June 2025
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(La Pianiste)
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Director – Michael Haneke – 2001 – Austria, France – Cert. 18 – 131m

*****

A masochistic piano teacher with an abusive mother embarks on an affair with a young male student – the opening film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 6th

Warning: NSFW.

This is at once representative of Haneke’s wider body of work and very different from it.

Representative because he is one of those directors whose personal use of cinematic vocabulary has been so honed over his years of making movies that he is able to clearly and precisely articulate problematic, controversial and taboo ideas and subject matter that few directors would be able to handle without descending into exploitation or commercialism. He is a director steeped in cinema, fascinated by how the process of making a movie constructs the narrative or other viewing and listening experience, and how that is perceived and understood by audiences.

Different because although Haneke generally writes as well and directs his own films, they are mostly original pieces whereas this one is an adaptation of a book, The Piano Teacher / Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek. Essentially a character study of a woman exhibiting sexual dysfunction, there’s nothing else in his oeuvre (or any other filmmaker’s, for that matter) that I have ever seen that’s quite like it.… Read the rest

Tags absent father, abusive mother, abusive relationship, adaptation, affair, Alfred Hitchcock, Anna Sigalevitch, Annie Giradot, apartment, applications procedure, arousal, auditorium, Austria, bath, bathroom, bedroom door, Benoît Magimel, blood, booth, broken glass, character study, cloakroom, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, cruelty, cubicle, domestic arrangements, domineering mother, Elfriede Jelinek, extreme, father’s death, flat, France, frustrated, gifted, glass tumbler, handbag, harrowing, home late, human connection, Isabelle Huppert, lacerate, lavatory cubicle, letter, love, masochist, Michael Haneke, mother, mothers and children, mothers and daughters, mummy issues, music, music academy, musical studies, NSFW, overbearing, parents and daughters, perverse, physical encounter, pianist, piano keyboard, possessive, pupil's legs, razor blade, rebellion, recital, rehearsal, relationship, Schubert, Schumann, search handbag, secure the bedroom door, self harm, sex shop, sexual dysfunction, sexuality, split screen, student, Susanne Lothar, taboo, talent, teacher and pupil, teacher and student, The Piano Teacher, unfulfilled, used tissues, Vienna, wardrobe

Features Live Action Movies

Ballerina
(2025)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 June 2025
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(2025)
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Director – Len Wiseman – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 125m

*****

A young, female assassin seeks out the man behind the organisation that killed her father – John Wick franchise spin-off is out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 6th

While the Bond movie No Time To Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021) divided viewers, there seemed to be a widespread consensus that Ana de Armas’ scene as a kickboxing 007 sidekick was something special, crying out for her to be given her own action film. In the interim, the actress’ high profile career has burgeoned – her portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (Andrew Dominik, 2002) proved that she can act just as well as she can do stunt action.

Meanwhile, writer Shay Hatten’s spec screenplay about a ballerina bent on revenge found its way to John Wick franchise originator and director Chad Stahelski, who thought it might fit into John Wick’s world. As they worked out exactly where that might be, Hatten was put to work on the scripts for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023). It was eventually decided that the events in Ballerina would take place at the same time as those in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and an early scene has John Wick (Keanu Reeves) passing on a staircase in the Ruska Roma Ballet School in New York.… Read the rest

Tags action, action film, action movie, Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, armaments shop, art direction, assassin, assassin school, Austria, ballerina, ballet dancer, ballet school, best use of one bullet, Bond, box of grenades, castle by the sea, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Chad Stahelski, choreography, clandestine organisation, corridors, costumes, cult, Czech Republic, David Castañeda, enemy, fake library bookshelf doors, father, fight, fight choreography, flamethrower battle, franchise, Gabriel Byrne, gone rogue, Hallstatt, hidden passage, homeless child, hotel, Ian McShane, James Bond, John Wick, Keanu Reeves, kickboxing, kill or be killed, Len Wiseman, lobby, location, mayhem, mountainside, narrow streets, New York, Norman Reedus, powerf, Prague, recruited from the streets, restaurant, revenge, rooms, Ruska Roma, safe houses, sets, Shay Hatten, snow, spec screenplay, stunt, stunt choreography, The Chancellor, The Continental, The Director, training, TV remote, US, vengeance, Victoria Comte, village, weaponisation of dinner plates

Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies

War Paint
Women at War

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 28 March 2025
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Women at War
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The Crying Game. Between a Rock and a Hard Place 2017 by Marcelle Hanselaar

Director – Margy Kinmonth – 2025 – UK – Cert. 12a – 89m

*****

A look at the output of various women artists who have documented and dissected war, and what they can tell us – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 28th

Although being promoted, reasonably enough, with an image from World War Two of women working with barrage balloons, right from the start in narration over its opening titles this breaks the mould for anyone expecting it to cover any one specific historical or geographical war. “I’m going to talk to women all round the world”, says director Kinmonth in regard to the concept of war as a catalyst for creativity. “What do women see that men don’t?” Quite apart from her gender, she is well-placed to tackle such a subject having recently made two documentaries on the subject of war artists: Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War (2022), War Art with Eddie Redmayne (2015), and many more before that on the subject of art in assorted social contexts.

The film is a compendium of interviews with living female artists or, in the cases of artists who’ve passed on, their descendants or proponents. Some of the names are familiar, such as Lee Miller, Maggi Hambling or Dame Rachel Whiteread, others much less so.… Read the rest

Tags 1066, 1979 Iran revolution, 1992, 2005 Darfur genocide, 2022-3, AC/DC, Afghanistan, Agent Orange poisoning, air raid, air raids, aircraft, American Pavilion, Ami Bouhassane, amplifying stories, annihilation, anti-aircraft guns, architect, artist, atrocity, ATS searchlight women, Austria, Balloon Command, barrage balloons, Bayeux Tapestry, Bletchley Park, Blitz, bombed houses, bombed out, burka, burned, ceasefire, Changi, Changi prison quilt, children’s drawings, consequences of war, creativity, crimes against humanity, crucifixion, culture, Dame Laura Knight, Dame Penelope Lively, Dame Rachel Whiteread, Darfour, Donetsk, drawing, Dutch, enigma, European Court of Human Rights, factory, factory girl, Falkland Islands, fashion model, freezing conditions, Galahad, Gladys Hines, history, Holocaust memorial, homeless, horse head impaled, hospitality, identity, Lee Miller, Linda Kitson, London, London Vogue, Luftwaffe, m Assil Diab, m searchlight beams, Maggi Hambling, Marcelle Hanselaar, Margaret Thatcher, Margy Kinmonth, martyrs, Maya Lin, miscarriage, missile, morality police, Mozambique, mural, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York City, Nigeria, Nina Berman, nineteenth century, official war artist, painting, Palestine, Palestinian Women, Pallanytsia, password, Patricia Thorncroft, photographer, plane, postage stamp, production line, propaganda, protest, protester, quilt, RA Summer Show, Rachel Reckitt, rape as a weapon of war, rape scene, Royal Academy, Russia, Second World War, Shirin Neshat, Singapore, social media, soldiers as rapists, spray paint, Sticker Project, stitched by nuns, Sudan, Sudan war, tiles, travelling car window, twentieth century, UK, Ukraine, US economy, US support for WW2, veil, Venice Biennale, Vietnam War, Vietnam War Memorial, violence and death, war and militarism, war crimes, War Paint, war photographer Lee Miller, war reportage gender imbalance, war zones, war-making, warplanre, wartime fashion photos, wartime propaganda, Washington DC, welcome bread, window sicker, witness, Women at War, women discarded after rape, women in the workforce, women in war zones, Women Life Freedom, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, WW2, Zhanna Kadyrova

Features Live Action Movies

Freud’s Last Session

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 June 2024
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Director – Matthew Brown – 2023 – UK – Cert. 12a – 108m

****

Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is visited in the last month of his life, living in Britain, by young Oxford don and Christian apologist CS Lewis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

September 1939. Chamberlain has issued his ultimatum to Hitler, and Britain waits to find out whether it will shortly be at war with Germany. Celebrated psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins), recently moved to Britain from Vienna to escape the Nazis, keeps turning the radio on and off in the hope of an update from the BBC. He is also expecting a visit from a young Oxford don, CS Lewis (Matthew Goode), “the Christian apologist”, with whose views he profoundly disagrees.

Lewis has written books including a parody of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress called The Pilgrim’s Regress, which is mentioned here, and the first book in his science fiction trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, which isn’t. He has however yet to either give his BBC broadcasts about the Christian faith, which will later form the basis of his most celebrated apologetic work Mere Christianity, or write his Narnia children’s fantasy novels.… Read the rest

Tags academic, Anna Freud, Anthony Hopkins, apologist, Austria, BBC, BBC radio, books, Britain, broadcast, Bunyan, celebrity, Chamberlain, Christian, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, Christian faith, Christianity, CS Lewis, curmudgeon, debate, declaration of war, disagreement, end of life, escape, evening, fathers and daughters, Germany, health issues, history, Hitler, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, lesbianism, LGBTQ, Liv Lisa Fries, Matthew Goode, medicine, meeting, Mere Christianity, Narnia, Nazis, Out of the Silent Planet, Oxford don, parents and children, parody, philosophy, psychoanalyst, psychology, radio, relationship, religion, science fiction, Second World War, September 1939, Sigmund Freud, stage play, Stephen Campbell Moore, The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Pilgrim’s Regress, UK, ultimatum, Vienna, visit, war, welfare, World War 2, World War II, World War Two, writer, WW2, young upstart

Features Live Action Movies

The White Ribbon
(Das Weiße Band)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 June 2024
1 Comment on The White Ribbon
(Das Weiße Band)

Director – Michael Haneke – 2009 – Austria, Germany – Cert. 15 – 144m

Reviewed for Third Way magazine to coincide with UK release date 13/11/2009.

Haneke’s first period drama for the big screen is set in 1913-14 in a Northern German Protestant village where strange accidents befall the community. A doctor (Rainer Bock), out riding a regular route, is brought down and injured by a wire between two trees. The wife of a farm labourer is killed when factory floorboards give way beneath her. Children are abducted. A baby’s window is left open in Midwinter. A building burns. But who is – or are – responsible?

The film sets out its cast of characters in terms of the social hierarchy. The landowning classes are represented by the local Baron (Ulrich Tukur), his wife (Ursina Lardi) and their child; the professional classes by a widowed doctor, the midwife (Susanne Lothar) “who has made herself useful to him”, the Baron’s steward (Josef Bierbichler), the village Pastor (Burghart Klaussner) and the local teacher (Christian Friedel) – also as an old man the narrator (Ernst Jacobi) – who is courting the nanny of the Baron’s son; the working classes by numerous agricultural labourers who generally feature less prominently in the story.… Read the rest

Tags 1910s, 1913, 1914, abduction, accidents, agriculture, aired in public, Austria, baby. window left open, baron, black and white, bring down, building burns, Burghart Klaussner, cane, child abuse, children, chils abduction, Christian Friedel, closed door, community, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, corporal punishment, corruption, crime, cruelty, death, declaration of war, deduction, dirty laundry, doctor, Ernst Jacobi, factory, factory floorboards, facts, fallen world, farm labourer, Germany, half-truths, hearsay, horse and cart, ineffectual, injury, insidious, Josef Bierbichler, killed, kitchen, labourers, landowning class, Leonie Benesch, malevolence, Michael Haneke, midwife, Midwinter, misinterpretation, mortality, motive, nanny, narrator, Northern Germany, organised religion, outsider, pastor, picnic, powerlessness, professional class, Protestant, punishment, pure intentions, puzzle, Rainer Bock, riddle, riding, social class, social hierarchy, steward, Susanne Lothar, teacher, town, tree, Ulrich Tukur, underpinning, Ursina Lardi, village, widowed, wife, wire, working class

Features Live Action Movies

Jeanne du Barry
(Jeanne du Barry)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 April 2024
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(Jeanne du Barry)
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Director – Maïwenn – 2023 – France – Cert. 15 – 117m

***1/2

A commoner works her way into the King of France’s affections and becomes a member of the aristocracy – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 19th

Born of the illicit union between a monk and a cook, the latter (Marianne Basler) taken in along with her daughter by the kindly M. Dumousseaux (Robin Renuchi) who ensures the child gets a decent education, Jeanne (Maïwenn) quickly realises her only viable career options are cooking, which she has no intention of pursuing, and harlotry. Before long, favoured client Compte Jean du Barry suggests to her that she should meet the King. To achieve this, she would need to become part of the King’s court for which a title is required, so she marries Jean in order to become the Countess du Barry and be presented to the King, Louis XV (Johnny Depp) .

Catching his majesty’s eye and favour, she is invited to his apartment, like many other women before or after her (although one suspects there were more before than after). Before meeting him alone, she is schooled in royal etiquette by the King’s trusted, right-hand man La Borde (Benjamin Lavernhe).… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Gran Turismo

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 August 2023
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Director – Neill Blomkamp – 2023 – US – Cert. 12a – 135m

*** ½

Facebook.com/GranTurismoFilm

#GranTurismoMovie

You can with a Nissan. A Welsh, gaming obsessive is recruited by a PR executive from Japanese car manufacturer Nissan to train as a professional Grand Prix driver – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 11th

Cardiff rail worker’s son Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) is a gaming obsessive, specifically the Gran Turismo videogame – or as he likes to describe it, racing simulator. He spends a lot of money on getting his gaming set up just right, and a lot of time either tweaking his virtual car for performance or logging hours practising his driving on the virtual set up. So real is the virtual driving experience to Jann that as he sits at the wheel, a diagrammatic drawing of his car builds itself out of thin air around him as he drives.

Alas, his father Steve (Djimon Hounsou), so supportive of Jann’s footballing brother Coby (Daniel Puig), thinks Jann needs to take stock and think about his future rather than pursuing his impossible dream of becoming a professional racer. However, his mother (Geri Halliwell Horner, former spice girl Ginger Spice and today the real life wife of Red Bull Formula One team principal Christian Horner) is far more supportive.… Read the rest

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Getting Away
With Murder(s)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 9 September 2021
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With Murder(s)
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Director – David Nicholas Wilkinson – 2021 – UK – Cert. 15 – 175m

*****

Most of the perpetrators of the Holocaust were never prosecuted: this documentary attempts to understand why not – on BD/DVD combo from Monday, March 27th following its debut on various streaming platforms UK, USA, Canada and Australia on Friday, January 27th 2023 (Holocaust Memorial Day)… Full details below review:

There’s something about the enormity of the issues involved here that makes this a very tough watch. (If it wasn’t, there would be something wrong. The Holocaust is not an easy issue to deal with. Films about it can consequently be tough to watch. And so they should be.) That combined with the near three-hour running time (this is not a complaint, honest) means it sat on my pending review pile for quite a while before I finally sat down and watched it.

I suspect Wilkinson is aware of this problem. As the film starts, he takes you (as it were) gently by the hand as he walks into Auschwitz and matter-of-factly discusses its horrors, helped by a man who works in the museum there and has probably helped numerous people before and since to come to terms with the implications of the place as they go round it.… Read the rest